1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to folding substantially flat hosiery products with other package-enhancing materials and, more particularly, to a method of forming a composite folded hosiery product made up of the hosiery product and a paper segment with or without an insert suitable for packaging, including packaging the composite product.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hosiery products, such as ladies' fine denier stockings and pantyhose, traditionally have been packaged by manually folding the extended garment with two or more folds, usually about an insert, a rather firm supporting element such as a sheet of cardboard or poly film. The folded garment and insert are then manually positioned within a thin box having a body portion and lid or a cardboard envelope which is sealed at one end by a flap. This technique, while resulting in attractive packaging, is time-consuming, inefficient, and costly. Moreover, manually handling the fine denier delicate fabric can result in picks and snags, thus damaging the garment and requiring its replacement.
Various machines have been developed to package hosiery automatically and semi-automatically principally in the sock industry where the fabric of the garments is more durable and where the product itself is significantly smaller and thus easier to handle automatically with appropriately designed machines. This type of packaging equipment usually utilizes a plunger to cause the insertion of the final folded product into the receiving package, most commonly a three-dimensional rectangular box which can thereafter be sealed at one end. While this procedure is acceptable for socks and the heavier denier hosiery products, it has not been successfully used to a great extent with fine denier fashion hosiery and pantyhose.
A significant amount of ladies' hosiery products has been packaged successfully with machinery when the garments are not boarded and thus remain in a crumpled, rather small configuration. Hosiery products sold under the trademark L'EGGS over the years which are placed in egg-like packages by automatic machinery are a principal example. In these packages, it is not usually possible to see the fabric of the garment prior to purchase, since there is no window in the package. Product selection is done by fabric samples positioned on or near the display from which the product is dispensed.
Currently, consumers prefer to purchase top-quality fine denier ladies' hosiery and pantyhose that have been boarded; i.e., stretched over a boarding frame and subjected to heat so that the fabric is smooth, unwrinkled, and easily viewed by a potential consumer, particularly when the fabric is ultimately packaged with an insert of a light color so that the knitted fabric is more distinctly presented for inspection. Thus, there is a continued need for streamlining the handling and packaging of such products in a more efficient and less costly manner. It is to these needs that the present invention is directed.